Stay With Me:A Shadowhunter Story
by Perfknight
Summary: For a person from one of the biggest Shadowhunter families in the world, Edward Whitelaw knew next to nothing about it. When he discovers his heritage and meets Celine Herondale, life seems to let him breathe a little easier-until he realizes his stay might not last forever.
1. Chapter 1

Commando Paintball. Edward Whitelaw's one favourite place in the world. Which was rather strange, considering that all that ever really happened there was participants getting shot-rather smartingly-with balls filled with a yellow goo. Then again, Edward himself was a little strange in that regard, though his reasons weren't insane. Laying down just behind the crest of a grassy hill, barricaded by a couple of sandboxes, the only real thing on Edward's mind was how much the pods on the front of his vest dug into his ribs.

A stark difference from the bland rental coveralls and equipment the walk-ons used, Edward sported pixellated tan BDUs, a fully covered olive green mask and a tactical vest with a shemagh wrapped around his throat. He carried a visually intimidating Bravo One Elite marker, underestimated by pros and feared by rentals. It had been a long time since he had used a rental gun. Looking back, it was clear the rookies were a little shell-shocked. None of them were moving up, and some of them ducked behind cover before a single round came out of their barrels. He couldn't blame them. He had done the same when he first started out.

Edward popped out of cover, rifle up. He snapped the hybrid zoom sight into a usable position, his vision now magnified threefold. Looking through it, he spotted a patch of red grass, which was actually dyed hair. An eyebrow raised in surprise. He hadn't previously seen anyone with red hair, or even dyed hair, period. He then dismissed it as some unidentified creature only he could see. It was a strange thing, though he was frequently told to ignore it. His adopted parents thought it would get him thrown in a mental hospital; in fact, they had considered actually putting him in one.

He realized he'd been out of cover for too long when a shot hit its mark over his shoulder. Ducking back behind the construction, he cursed himself for the instance of tunnel vision. He checked himself, finding no paint anywhere on him. Good. He came back out and shot at a tower. A hand raised and he grinned. 'Got him,' he thought cheerfully. He also noticed the redhead had disappeared.

A shout could suddenly be heard, and to him it sounded like, "Game over!" He stood up, heading back to the staging area. Last game of the day, and he got the final tag. Not bad at all.

Upon returning to his adoptive father's car, Edward could hear movement coming from his right. Nothing special, just a crunch of gravel. He turned, and the first thing that caught his eye was bright red hair. His eyes traveled downward, passing over his fairly handsome face, his black t-shirt, landing on a knife the length of Edward's forearm. He knew this meant trouble, but if he tried to defend himself against something no one else could see, there would be more trouble. His priorities shifted to survival. Not shifting his stance, he called out to his not-so-new guardian.

"Dad, could you wait here, please? I won't be long." Edward began backing up as he said this, looking at his fatherly figure. "I just have some... Business to attend to."

With that, he turned around and ran, not bothering to wait for an answer. The artificially red-haired boy followed him. Edward had stripped of his mask, marker, vest and shemagh, making it easier to run. Without the protective mask, Edward's brown hair was rather prominent against his fair skin, covering a skull that held a brain which scored in the 140's on most IQ tests. Whenever his eyes came over something, which they always did, whoever was looking would have seen deep brown irises around the same colour of his hair. He was fairly good looking, almost as handsome as the demon; his personality was weird enough to make most girls disengage once they knew him, however.

Footsteps pounded on gravel, and the only thing on Edward's mind was to get out of public sight. Then he could focus on taking care of this asshole. He had been told before to ignore the world of myth. All his life, his adoptive parents had told him to simply look away, to not bother them, for fear of being hospitalized. This time, myth could not be ignored if he was to survive.

He came to a piece of protective netting that stood before a forested playing field. Deciding that this was out of sight enough, he turned around to find the psycho blocking the way back. He got into a fighting stance as the red-haired boy raised the knife high. Now that Edward could see the boy's eyes, he knew they weren't human. No human had bright green eyes naturally, nor did they have a crimson sclera.

The boy brought the knife down, towards Edward's neck. It seemed to move in slow motion, and Alex felt a stab of fear. One wrong move and Edward was a dead man.

The boy would have finished the action had his wrist not been grabbed.

Edward kicked the boy in the stomach and punched him in the upper jaw when he reeled over. Twisting the wrist that held the knife immediately, he did not allow for a second of recovery. By the next second, the knife was in Edward's hand. He shoved the aggressor away, his eyes alight with shock at the feat he had just performed. He never imagined having to use the knife training he occasionally had at his karate classes.

Rapidly, the boy turned around, unfazed by the disarmament. Edward knew this meant trouble. The psychotic boy lunged, but Edward took hold of his right arm. With a poignant knee strike to the face, he drove the knife into the young man's bicep. Black blood oozed from the wound, and the boy cried out in pain. The redhead was shoved away once more.

A shout of rage emitted from the overly aggressive boy before it was silenced by another humanoid figure's interference. A hand spun the psycho boy's shoulders around and he collapsed, a wound in his chest with more black fluid seeping out. It reminded him of a robot leaking hydraulic fluid, in three places now.

Edward looked at his saviour with shock, then gratitude, then shock again, then a mixture of the two.

"Th... Tha... Thank you," he got out between heavy breaths. His eyes returned to the insane boy. The bipedal figure suddenly began to collapse on itself, to Edward's surprise. After a minute, only earth remained. Not even a drop of blood was left to stain the dirt, which was now marked with both of their footprints.

"What the hell was that?" Edward asked incredulously. His breath had caught itself, but his brain wasn't caught up enough to identify the organism that had just disappeared, nor was it able to figure out why he was just attacked. He had seen strange things, but he had never seen anything like this. The postmortem of the humanoid creature seemed to calm him somewhat. He felt a little safer, lest the second one was there to kill him as well. He kept his guard up, but his hands remained at his sides.

As he scanned his companion more thoroughly, he found she was a woman-perhaps even a girl, she looked so young-relatively well built, with long brown hair that fell past her shoulders. Her face was one of slight anxiousness, clearly uncomfortable in this place.

"I... I can't explain here, but come with me and I promise you will be safe." The girl's tone was frantic, as if she sensed more boys like the one that had just disappeared in the immediate area. He still couldn't tell whether or not to trust her. His fist clenched and unclenched itself.

"Well, my dad will get anxious if I'm not back very soon," Edward countered, gently stroking his chin with his right hand. This must have been a little strange for the girl, as she was standing in front of a teenage boy with combat fatigues on. Though, this was to be expected at a paintball field.

Eventually, Edward's curiosity got the better of him. "Alright, fine. I'll let you take me wherever, but if you try and kill me, I promise you, it will backfire miserably." He hoped the threat was deterrent enough; truth be told, he was not sure if he could actually kill someone. Though, with the previous encounter, he was feeling a little badass.

The girl rolled her eyes, before opening her mouth to speak. She was quickly cut off by another, seemingly angelic female voice. It had an accent, barely there, that Edward could only describe as British.

"Great. Your only other option is to stay here and potentially get killed by more demons." Edward whirled around to face the speaker, who just so happened to be a girl that seemed to be made of gold. Her skin was a paler gold, but everything else was the exact colour of the metal: Her hair, her eyes that seemed oddly like a cat's, everything. Something about her put a bad taste in Edward's mouth. Perhaps he didn't like the sight of someone so golden, ironically. He tried to identify what on earth the girl might be. A witch? No, she had weird tattoos all over her skin; witches didn't, from what he knew. Werewolves and vampires were out of the question, and she was far too large to be a fairy.

Edward rolled his eyes. "I already said I'll go, unless you two want to try and-" He cut himself off at the sight of a black tattoo on the girl's right hand. It seemed reminiscent of an eye; he looked down at his own hand, and found that the tattoos were exactly alike. He looked the girl in the eyes, avoiding the golden girl's gaze. "Well, that's weird," he muttered.

The girl in front of him-decidedly the more normal one-ignored him completely. "Celine, be nice. I'm rather sure your death threats are not convincing him to come with us. Now, am I orbing home with you two?"

The angelic girl named Celine merely rolled her feline eyes. "Hey, I'm just warning him of imminent death. By the Angel, it's not like I'm actually going to kill him..."

"Orbing?" Edward interjected, his tone bewildered. He'd never heard of such a mode of transport; it seemed as supernatural as what had occurred a minute ago. Whatever it was, it appeared better than staying here, with possible threats galore.

"Also, how did you find me at a paintball field?" He added. The question had been burning in his head the whole conversation, even if it had only been going on for about thirty seconds.

"Well," Celine said, "we weren't looking for you, per se. We were actually looking for the demon."

"We can have this discussion later," the girl in front of Edward said impatiently. "Celine, are you coming?" The girl said, extending her hand, which Celine took.

"Of course, Katie," Celine replied, looking between Katie and Edward. "Charlie would have my head on a platter if I'm not home when he is."

"I wouldn't think about that if I were you. Besides, my arms are starting to ache," the other girl complained, turning towards Edward. "You coming?"

Reluctantly, Edward took Isla's hand, looking at Celine. She flashed a grin at him, but that did nothing to relieve his suspicions. 'Showoff,' he thought, chewing on his inner cheek. The rest of the sentence was cut off by him spinning into what seemed like oblivion.

Lights flashed all around the three of them, a blur of blues and greens and reds, before Edward's feet hit solid ground. He stumbled forward, eventually falling and rolling to compensate. He had landed on grass, so it was easier than concrete. Edward finally stopped and looked around, his face suddenly paling. They weren't at Commando Paintball. Or anywhere near it.

New York City unfolded all around them; what looked like a massive Gothic church stood in front of him. Edward could not comprehend it, no matter how hard he tried. But that paled in comparison with his other thought: What would his adoptive father think? Then again, perhaps he should wait to process all this new information that he could feel waiting to dump on him.

"Home at last! DIBS ON THE TRAINING ROOM!" Celine shouted, and bolted for the door.

So this is where they live, Edward thought.


	2. Chapter 2

Just as Edward Whitelaw was recovering from the obvious shock of being quite literally teleported into Ottawa, a young boy with a close semblance to Celine-he seemed even more angelic than she, if that was even possible-hurled himself down the Church's front steps. Celine, meanwhile, grinned and took off just as he reached her. The boy, once he was within arm's length of Celine, grabbed her waist and pulled her with him to the floor. Within a few seconds, Celine was on the floor, her arms pinned to her sides.

"When are you going to learn that you just will not beat me?" the boy said, his voice full of laughter.

 _Ah_ , Edward thought. _Siblings_. _Of course._

"Okay, okay!" Celine was laughing and squirming to get out of the boy's grasp. Edward could have sworn people on the street were looking to see what on Earth was the matter, but they didn't seem interested in any of them, much to his confusion.

"You win, Charles, now let go of me!"

"Nope. What did I tell you about calling me Charles?" the boy said, giving Celine a glare.

"Fine, CHARLIE. Now get off and go play with the seraph blades or something." Charlie nodded, smirking, and stood up off Celine, stepping over her and back into the church.

Seraph blades. Those words stuck out to Edward, entirely unfamiliar. They spoke of something beautiful and dangerous, and yet something he didn't even know existed. He kept it in the back of his mind, something to ask for later.

"Seriously," he muttered, not caring whether he was heard or not, "I'm not even in the building and already I'm getting things I don't know and/or understand thrown at me."

Celine, who heard him due to her proximity, turned around to face him, her face draining of emotion in an instant. "It'll be like that for a while. Trust me, I know." Edward was about to ask how exactly she knew, but she started off toward the door before he could open his mouth.

As Edward watched her disappear into the church, unsure of why he did so, he glanced once more at the massive installation, taking it all in as Katie looked over her shoulder at him.

"Come on," she said, waving for him to follow her. Edward hesitated for a second before following after the girl. Only then did he notice that they all wore black. On both girls, it offset their golden and/or dark brown features in a fascinating way. He liked it when girls wore black, anyway. It made them seem a tad more dangerous when provoked, or so he thought. Then again, girls who wore black were often rather mouthy and malicious.

As he ascended the steps to the church, he wondered how the hell he would avoid telling anyone back home about this. Any of it.

The interior of the church was as Edward would have expected, pews lining the place up and down, with what looked like an elevator on the left-hand side. Katie led him towards the metal grate, not touching him once the whole time. In the shadows of one of the pews, a small feminine figure poked her head out, seemingly nervous. Edward took a step towards her, but Isla's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"That's Irene," Katie said before Edward could ask. "She's driven herself quite mad for our cause, but she is one of our most revered, apparently. Despite what the Clave says. Now come on, she talks to no one but Charlie anyway." With a none too gentle tug, Katie pulled Edward towards the elevator.

The three rode up in silence until Katie spoke up. "I don't understand how a Shadowhunter like you could have bypassed the Clave," she said. Edward understood everything within that sentence save for Shadowhunter and Clave. Then again, that meant he understood basically nothing about it. He looked at the girl with slight bafflement.

"Katie, I don't particularly think it was his fault," Celine countered.

"Why say that?"

"Well, look at him. He barely even knows what we're talking about."

"Fine, fine." Katie sighed as the elevator came to a stop and she stuck her hand out for Edward to take, much to Celine's apparent dismay. "Come on, come meet Matt!" Katie said, her previous expression fading in an instant. Edward took her hand and was pulled out of the elevator with surprising force.

"Or we could literally just do this!" Celine's voice called out from behind them. "MATTHEW WILLIAM CARSTAIRS, GET YOUR BUTT DOWN HERE OR I'LL GET JASON AND TELL HIM YOU'VE BEEN STEALING HIS CHOCOLATE!" she shouted up the stairs, making Edward jump halfway into the ceiling and drop Katie's hand. Suddenly, a boy appeared from around the corner of the hallway's intersection; his silver eyes were the first thing that caught Edward's attention, seeing as they were quite wide.

"You wouldn't dare," the boy, Matt, said in utter shock. Edward couldn't contain a snicker at such a ridiculous threat being taken seriously. "Don't laugh, this is serious!"

"Oh, I would. My brother, remember?"

"You evil little Herondale," Matt said, pushing black hair that was quite wet-making it even darker than it would have normally been-out of his eyes. The boy was rather tall, and Edward would have described him as slender. His eyes and facial features were highly reminiscent of the Far East, and his skin was quite pale, offering a large contrast. His inky hair was around medium length and fell over his forehead in bangs. His hands, as Edward observed, were slight like his body, with thin fingers meant for a violinist, not a warrior. Then again, assassins were technically warriors, and his hands fit the bill perfectly.

Edward stopped himself before he went too far into his own mind, not even noticing that Katie had moved well out of his reach and into Matt's, slamming into him. "I have a boyfriend with longer hair than me," she whined, though it wasn't true. Katie's hair was considerably longer than Matt's. Perhaps she was just teasing, Edward thought.

"Shush, I know I need it cut," he said, pulling the girl to him and kissing her head.

"So this is Matt?" Edward said to no specific person in the room, though the subject of his question responded anyway.

"Yes, Matt Carstairs. But to Katie, my family, Celine, and her family, I'm Will. Or Mattie." He extended his left hand for Edward to shake, and Edward noticed that mark on his hand again. Edward took it with his own hand, shaking it twice and bringing his right hand up to check if the marks were the same. Sure enough, they were, which made Matt furrow his eyebrows.

"Katie, was this guy in an Institute before you brought him here?" He asked, stealing a sidelong glance at his girlfriend and then at Celine.

"No, we found him at a paintball field. And he was wearing some kind of weird gear. Still is." Edward looked down at what Katie had called weird gear; he'd completely forgotten that he was still in his BDU's. Of course they'd think it was weird: Their "gear" was all black. He opened his mouth to protest, but Matt spoke within a half second.

"Really? He's a Shadowhunter, Katie. I can't believe the... where did this guy come from? You guys were assigned to Ottawa, right?" Isla nodded.

Celine piped up. "He didn't even look like he knew what we were talking about."

"As a matter of fact," Edward said, "I still don't! I believe I was offered an explanation." He looked towards Katie hopefully, but somehow she and Matt were already on their way down the corridor. He could have sworn he caught Matt muttering about having to talk to Katie. Matt's voice trailed on about the Ottawa Institute-something Edward had absolutely no idea even _existed_ in his citybefore then-but he was around the corridor before Edward could catch anything of substance.

"Well, you said you wanted an explanation," Celine said, making Edward whirl around to face her. Something made his heart rate increase, but he wasn't sure what. It had to be something about this girl, but he wasn't in love with her.

Was he?

Celine's golden eyebrow was raised and her arms were folded in front of her, as if waiting for something. She somehow looked intimidating yet vulnerable at the same time.

"Well, yeah. The other girl said she'd explain it, but she's kind of, you know, gone."

Celine nodded, biting her lip. "Well, that Mark on your hand, that's not a tattoo, in case you were thinking that. It's a Mark, and if you're not dead by now, a way of knowing whether you're one of us." Edward raised an eyebrow in shock, but Celine wasn't exactly fazed. "When we found you, you asked us how we found you at a paintball field. Well, to be honest, we didn't exactly know you were there at all. I was tracking a demon using something called a Sensor. Specifically made to track demonic energies. The creature you pretty much almost defeated, that was a demon." Her hands fidgeted with her arms, gently pulling at the sleeves of her outfit. "I'm about ninety-nine percent certain that it was an Eidolon, a shapeshifter. I've had several encounters with them, so I know what I'm talking about. You could see it, plus the Shadow World as a whole because you're a Shadowhunter. Do you know exactly what a Shadowhunter is?"

"Well, it's pretty hard to know what that is when you just heard of it." Despite his words, the word did seem vaguely familiar to Edward, like something heard in memory of a dream. "I guess you hunt demons?"

"That's part of it," she replied, nodding. "We do it to protect mundanes-like your adoptive father, I guess-"

"What the hell do you mean, 'mundanes?' Why do you call them that?" At Celine's look, he took a sharp breath. "Sorry, I just have a terrible short-term memory, and I don't want to lose any questions."

Celine nodded, her annoyed expression clearing slightly. "Right. I understand. Well, mundanes to us are basically human beings to the rest of the world. Anyways, we don't just save mundanes from demons. We also have to keep Downworlders from killing each other and breaking the Accords. By Downworlders, I mean vampires, werewolves, warlocks and the like." At Edward's lack of astounded expression, Celine tilted her head. "I guess you've heard of them. In stories. Well, we have a saying around here: 'All the stories are true.'"

Edward nodded, understanding somewhat. "I think I've seen them before, vampires anyway. I thought they were just weird people with very well done Halloween makeup and only went out at night. At least, until I saw their fangs..." He rubbed his neck, which was luckily unbitten. "Anyway, you mentioned something about the Accords?"

"Yeah, the Accords. They're meant to symbolize peace between Downworlders, which is a good thing considering the Clave had kind of been dicks to them over the past few centuries. Also, we're tasked with tracking down and killing any Downworlder that breaks the Accords. Any other questions?" The question was kind of unnecessary: Edward had about a billion more questions, but he decided on one, a word that had been tossed to the wind so casually by Celine earlier. He thought of it because it was so superficial, and everything else could come later.

"What the hell is a seraph blade?"

Celine only smiled at this and pulled out what looked like a bladeless, guardless sword hilt. "Take it," she said, holding it out to him. He did so with a gentle grasp; when nothing happened, he gripped it more tightly. Still nothing.

"Not much from the get-go," he muttered, unimpressed thus far, but he was willing to be patient.

"Just wait. Do you know any angel names?" Celine asked, but Edward merely shook his head. She bit her lip gently, something she seemed to enjoy doing, seeing as she did it so often. "Well, most of my seraph blades are named," she murmured before her eyes lit up once more. "I've got it. Hold it tightly because the next part will be a little bit of a surprise. All I want you to do is hold it and say the name 'Malik'. But you have to say it like you're naming the seraph blade. It's a pretty common name, but this one's only name is Malik. Nothing else."

He looked at the small device. _Interesting._ He hesitated for a second, then said the magic word. "Malik!"

A blade shot out of the handle, glowing a bright white. It stopped at a knife's length, but it shone with a bright white fire. The effect made it seem like it was made of glass encasing an impossibly luminous flame. Celine gently grabbed the hilt, moving the weapon so that it was held between them. The white light reflected in her eyes, making them a silvery gold and her skin paler.

"That, whatever the hell your name is, is a seraph blade."


	3. Chapter 3

Edward's eyes went wide at the weapon, his face lighting up and his jaw dropping. "And that, Celine, is one hell of a weapon," he said with a slight laugh in his voice. _This is so cool!_ his mind screamed. His own eyes, normally hazel, shone almost gold in the light. "My name's Edward, by the way."

"Nice to meet you." Celine laughed softly. "It's what we fight with every other day. Burns the skin of Shadowhunters and mundanes. But they're angel blades, so they are therefore our best weapon against demons. Nearly every Shadowhunter has a seraph blade and a stele. I want you to have this Seraph Blade." Her hand released the strangely beautiful weapon, dropping so that the blade was only in his grasp. "They respond to the name of the angel you've given it. So if you were to say Malik again...," she trailed off.

"Wait, you're GIVING me this?" Edward asked in shock. It hadn't occurred to him that he would be handed a weapon on his first day. "Malik," he added, to deactivate the clearly supernatural sword. The blade responded, shimmering down so that only the hilt was left.

"You don't have to use it straight away of course!" she said quickly, waving her hands in front of her somewhat frantically. "No, you've still got a lot to learn. I mean, I don't finish my own Shadowhunter studies and training for another two years. But it's better than nothing." She shifted from one foot to the other, training her gaze on the floor as if nervous.

Edward looked for a place to put the blade, settling on a place in his BDU pocket. "Thanks, anyways," he said with a slight smile. "That thing really reminds me of a lightsaber."

At that, Celine looked up, bewildered. "Lightsaber?" she said quietly.

He took a step back in shock and something else he couldn't quite name. "You don't know what a lightsaber is?!" He was dumbfounded by Celine's complete and utter lack of knowledge. "You obviously don't know what Star Wars is, then."

"Unfortunately not," she replied with a nervous laugh. "The only mundane movie I've ever watched was Jaws."

His mouth twitched at the naming of mundanes. It was getting on his nerves. However, he set it aside quickly.

"I ought to show you sometime, then," he said with a smile. "It's possibly the best movie series ever made. Not to mention iconic."

"Perhaps you ought to. And sorry. About the whole 'mundane' thing. We don't really have anything else to call them. Anything nicer, anyway." Celine bit her lip, running a hand through her golden curls.

He waved a dismissive hand. "Not to worry. I won't exsanguinate you over it," he said with a slight chuckle. At her look, he added "Joking!"

In the meantime, something was very clearly going off in his brain. He hadn't confirmed it yet, but it was impossible to deny it now. His mind kept telling him to ask her out. And it made sense; the slightly sarcastic girl from the field had disappeared with a thin shell, leaving a kind and beautiful young woman behind. Even her name was lovely, oddly French, too. He hadn't known why he'd tried to push her away at first. Perhaps it was the indirect death threat.

 _Damn it,_ he thought, taking a deep breath. "So, uh, I thought maybe we could watch it over the weekend?"

Celine blushed darkly, her skin going from pale gold to a darker gold when she caught onto the intentions of his words. She ignored the blush and tilted her head to the side in thought, her golden eyes clouding over.

"Unless you count fighting demons all weekend as something that would prevent that, sure. Sometime this weekend is good." she smiled softly. "Now you have the clairvoyance rune, let's get you a stele."

After a few more minutes of Edward asking what a clairvoyance rune and stele were, he figured out that the rune was what he had thought of as a tattoo on his right hand, for seeing the Shadow World. A stele, on the other hand, was apparently a device used for making those runes.

Suddenly, Celine asked him a question that she perhaps should have a long time ago. "Wait a second. How on earth did you get that rune in the first place? It can't have been from the Ottawa Institute, right?"

Edward shook his head. It hadn't been; his parents had forbidden any member of the Ottawa Institute from speaking to him, or even coming to his house every six years. They hadn't exactly spoken to Edward about this, but they did mention never speaking to anyone that said they were from the Ottawa Institute or the Clave. They didn't mention anything else. When he told this to Celine, she frowned. "That's weird. Why would they do something like that?"

"I don't know," Edward responded. "There was one incident, though..."

 _Edward's mind jumped back to a day in February, three years past. It was a typically cold day in downtown Ottawa, citizens trotting past, some with their mouths covered by scarves, some not. Edward had been dressed in his typical winter outfit, consisting of a red jacket, dark gray snowpants, hat, neckwarmer, and black winter gloves. Of course, this sort of thing was standard for Canadian children who actually knew what cold weather could do and weren't complete idiots._

 _His slightly more miniature_ _self had trudged along in the snow, gazing around at passers-by and the buildings that pierced the sky. Cars had rolled by along the street, all headed somewhere in the city. The faint smell of tobacco smoke had filled the air, combined with whatever local delicacies were being consumed. He had no idea how he remembered it so vividly, but he did. At one point, his_ _parents had passed an alleyway, and Edward had followed close behind, but not close enough._

 _He had felt a hand closing over his arm, pulling him into the space between two buildings. Edward had struggled, eventually landing a good elbow strike to the stomach of his assailant, but instead of escape, a shockwave of pain had suddenly exploded within his nose. Edward fell, slipping on the icy asphalt. His senses went wild, but he could have sworn he had felt his glove being torn off and then someone_ drawing _on it. An icy hot feeling, similar to that of sticking your hand in the snow, had spread over the back of his hand and he had kicked out, missing his attacker's head by inches. Instead of disappearing, however, the feeling in his hand had persisted for a few seconds, even though he had heard the sound of footsteps._

 _Edward had looked down at his right hand and saw a tattoo of what looked like an eye._

As he snapped back to reality, he found himself staring at his right hand, where the Clairvoyance rune lay. He shook his head to clear it, then looked back up at Celine, who was nodding. Edward hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud.

"So, yeah. I had been able to see Downworlders and things like that before this, but this was the first time I had ever seen that type of rune."

"Weird," Celine said, biting her lip. "So it must have been a Shadowhunter, since Nephilim-that's another name we call ourselves-are the only ones who know runes from the Gray Book."

"Gray book?" said Edward, tilting his head. In answer, Celine nodded.

"Yeah, it's a book of all the runes the Angel allowed the Shadowhunters to have. It's kind of like the Angels' language if you will. We still haven't figured it out, and probably never will. Anyways, it had to be one from the Ottawa Institute. But I honestly don't know why they'd do that, wait until you were twelve and jump you like that." Celine shook her head, sending her golden curls bouncing. "Doesn't make any sense."

"We'll probably have to figure that out later. So, since I'm actually a Shadowhunter, would I be, like, trained or something?" This made Celine smile.

"Yeah, actually. My father tutored me for most of my life, even though my early days of training were difficult. I was the smallest of the group, and the weakest. That was obviously bad in the fighting portion of it... Oh well, at least his lessons were entertaining. You'll love him. I'll try and get you a tutoring session tomorrow, but no promises."

"All right," Edward said, managing a small smile. "Can't wait to start. I mean, I did do like nine years of karate before we met, so it shouldn't be _that_ big of a learning curve."

Celine laughed, the first time she did so since she had found Edward. "Lucky. I didn't have it easy. I was the smallest Shadowhunter here when I started my training at eight years old. I was absolutely tiny. It took me two years just to learn how to do backflips and frontflips off of the rafters. And by that point, all the other Shadowhunters my age were way ahead of me. And then something else happened that put off my training when I was twelve. So all in all, I didn't properly finish the training I had to be taught by my father until I was 13. You would've had a better chance than me. My brother's taught me since then and I have to say, I've been getting a hell of a lot better. I still can't beat him, hardly anyone can."

"Well, here's hoping those frontflips were at a decent height. I hope they don't expect me to do one off the ground. That would probably end in disaster," he admitted nervously.

"Wait, you were small?" Edward added, injecting humour into his voice once again via circumstance. The girl was almost his height, and he was taller than most people at his high school.

"I know right? Hard to believe," Celine said, fidgeting with her top. "But yes, I was very small. Wasn't this angelic looking either."

"Well, the past was the past, you can say that for sure."

Celine bit her lip in a small smile. "Yeah. But in some ways, looking kinda like an angel is a curse. You have no idea what vampires would do for a pretty face. But hey, I suppose you've had your fair share of admirers."

Edward blushed a little at that. "I guess, but... I'm a bit of a geek, so I'm not that noticed. And I've never actually seen a vampire who wanted to bite me." He shrugged.

"By the way, what are your kind called? I heard something about a heron, but I'm _pretty_ sure you're not a bird." This made Celine laugh once again, louder this time. Edward's eyebrows shot up, nearly disappearing into his hair. He hadn't intended for her to actually _laugh_ at the joke.

 _Guess my humour's better than I thought._

"It's my family name. Herondale," she began, launching into an explanation of Shadowhunter families; the fact that they were more respected the longer they'd been around; and the fact that they had a symbol and a ring. (Her family symbol was a group of herons in flight.) Edward nodded along to her words, though they didn't seem to answer his question.

"Okay, what about your pupils? How did you get those?"

Celine pointed at her eyes for confirmation, and Edward nodded. "Well, no one really knows," she said. "My father doesn't have them, nor my mother. I think they know something, but they just won't tell me. And as for my skin, well, his skin was like this, too. That's probably where I got this from."

Edward frowned. "So you're still a human."

"Well, Shadowhunter, but yeah. Shadowhunters are actually half angel, half human."

"Half angel?" Edward raised an eyebrow. He'd never had much interest in fantasy, despite everything that he saw, and angels were one of the concepts that he'd never really gotten into.

"Well, yeah. Everything we do revolves around angels, since we have their blood."

"Might I ask why you have angel blood in you?"

Celine smiled knowingly. "I knew that question was coming sooner or later. You see, around a thousand or so years ago, demons began invading the earth in massive numbers. So, to counteract this, a once mundane named Jonathan Shadowhunter summoned the Angel Raziel to figure the whole problem out. Raziel decided to mix some of his own blood with Jonathan's blood in a chalice that would from then on be known as the Mortal Cup, to create a superior race of warriors to properly fight the demons. After this, the Mortal cup was used, and still is, to create new Shadowhunters when the Clave is in need. The Clave is basically the word for all the Shadowhunters in the world. Anyway, Raziel also gave us the runes we use almost every day. They all come from the Gray Book. I think I mentioned that earlier."

"Yes, you did," Edward said patiently while Celine nodded.

"Also, we name our seraph blades after angels because it's said that whatever angel you name your blade after, that same angel's spirit inhabits the blade, if that makes any sense."

"None, but then again nothing does. I'm still getting used to all this talk of angels."

"Yeah, it's angels, angels, and more angels. Don't be surprised when you walk into a classroom next," Celine said with a teasing smile. "Come on, I'll show you the weapons room and we can get you a stele," she added, taking his arm and leading him down the hall. Edward had no real choice but to follow.


	4. Chapter 4

The weapons room was, to say the least, extensive. As Edward gazed at its massive collection, more weapons seemed to pop out of the void and onto the racks. Swords, maces, axes and other lethal-looking things littered the place, though Edward did notice one thing. The lack of firearms. When he asked about this, the answer he received surprised him.

"Guns don't actually work when we use runes with them," Celine said almost regretfully. "They prevent gunpowder from activating. It's rather frustrating, but what can you do?" She shrugged and slunk further into the room. Within a few seconds, Celine found what she was looking for and knelt down, plucking a piece of metal from a box in the corner. She stood back up, handing the object to him.

"Here," she said. "Your first stele."

Edward took the object in his hand, examining it carefully. "So, what is this exactly? Your equivalent of a tattoo needle?"

"I guess you could call it that," Celine said, casually leaning against the wall and pulling out her own tool. "Steles are made of the same stuff as seraph blades, a heavenly metal called _adamas_. These things allow us to apply runes. Without runes, we're not much more than mundanes."

Edward flinched again at the use of the word _mundane_ , even though he had tried to convince himself over the course of the past hour that these Shadowhunters were his true people. Obviously, it was fairly hard to erase fifteen years of believing otherwise in an hour. "So, these runes give you the ability to... Fight demons in general?"

"Yep," Celine said cheerfully. "Give me a word. Any word. Strength, speed, night vision... The list goes on."

Edward thought about that for a second. When you have no boundaries, it's hard to decide on one thing, he thought. Eventually, one word came to his mind, one that was simple, but not too generic.

"Silence," he said. It was a tad strange, he thought, to have a word for wordlessness, a sound for soundlessness. But something about the word fascinated him, and if there was a rune, a Mark that could make such a thing happen, he would be utterly convinced.

Celine nodded at his choice, and began to draw on her own now exposed forearm. Her face contorted upon contact with the tool, hissing slightly, but it was brief. Black lines flowed from the stele, setting themselves into her skin instantaneously. When she finished, a dark, faintly glowing rune remained, resembling the number six with two additional lines through the top.

Edward blinked repeatedly for a second; he'd never seen the process of creating a rune before, and the practical effects were as mind blowing as the theory. No ink, just a stick of heavenly metal.

"Does it work?" Edward asked. In answer, Celine raise her foot high into the air, her knee becoming level with her hip, and slammed it into the ground. Reflexively, Edward cringed; the impact made no sound, however. He opened his eyes, and sure enough, Celine was grinning.

"Soundless rune," she explained. "It affects all noise you make and silences it. I think that's what you were going for, right?"

Edward could only stare, wide-eyed for a few seconds. "Okay," he said. "You've got me convinced.

"By the way, does it hurt at all?" he added, biting his lip.

"A little," she said, stealing a glance at the still glowing rune. "You've felt it before, though, haven't you?"

"Oh, yeah... My bad."

Celine smiled again. "Don't worry about it. This thing isn't permanent, though. Most runes fade away after a day or two."

"Yeah. This is quite a fair bit to take in," Edward said, scratching his chin. "Hopefully it'll get better with the classes."

"The classes should make it easier. Especially since here, the adults tutor their own kids. And when my dad teaches me something, he always tells me some hilarious story about what happened when he was a child and first encountered whatever he taught me. The Fire rune one was especially hilarious," Celine said, giggling a little at the memory.

Edward rolled his eyes in a good-natured way, smiling a little. However, the smile was brief; he could not bring himself to stop thinking about his true father, the one who died in his infancy. Celine seemed to notice, her smile fading. "Edward, are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said, waving a dismissive hand. "I'm fine. I just wish I could have known my father."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Celine looked at her shoes, her stele hand dropping to her side. "If it was any consolation, I would've spoken the words of goodbye that we give to Shadowhunters when they die. And then there's the Remembrance rune. But...I don't think they'll be of much use. That's the downside to this world. We can do so much, summon demons, summon angels. But we can't prevent death. No one can."

Edward nodded. "Yeah. But it doesn't really matter now. It could have all been an accident, for all I know."

"Shadowhunters do often die in accidents," Celine said, nodding. "Sorry to scare you, but it's true. However, we die just as often from demons. It was demons that tore away one of my best friends as a child." Her voice was bitter, the memory clearly still fresh. "I only had three. One was Matt's childhood sweetheart and she was more of Matt's sister Aerin's friend than mine. Aerin was the second and the last was Daniel. Killed by a bunch of Raum Demons."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Must have been nasty," Edward said, biting his lip; he knew he'd probably said the wrong thing. Celine, however, only nodded.

"It was," she muttered under her breath, looking up. "But that's beside the point."

"Yeah, it is.

"Uh, since I might be staying here a while, are there any bedrooms available?" Edward asked, attempting to end the conversation. Death was clearly an uncomfortable topic, even in a warrior race.

"There are, actually," Celine said, apparently glad to be off the topic of her friend's death. "This place is meant to house fellow Shadowhunters. Follow me."

 _That night, Edward dreams himself in a blank void with his adoptive father opposite him_. _The boy's eyebrows furrow, but his "father" only smiles and opens his arms wide. Edward steps forward to go into the embrace just as the white walls unfold, and he is standing in the forest he had left barely a half day ago. His adoptive father morphs into the... thing he'd fought, onyx knife in hand, red hair shining in the sunlight._

 _Edward, however, knows that he now has a weapon. He pulls it out of his black gear jacket; a seraph blade. "Malik!" he says, the blade lighting up with white fire as it is named. Before the demon even has a chance to raise its knife hand, Edward lunges forward with a yell, shearing its head clean off. The severed body part spins through the air as Edward shoves the demon away, eventually catching the head in his free hand._

 _To his disgust, the head is not the one of the demon boy; in fact, a tiny voice in his head told him it is his father's, his real father's. He nearly drops the head, but not before it speaks:_

 _"Edward, what have you done?" his father says. Edward can only shake his head, his mouth half-open in shock. What_ had _he done? "Wake up, Edward," the severed head continued. "Wake up and fix this..."_

Edward bolted up as soon as he awoke, his eyes wide. He wasn't breathing heavily, but the dream had still shaken him, more from confusion than fear. He fell back against the pillow with a slight groan. Edward knew that once he had woken up in the middle of the night, he was scarcely able to go back to sleep. He shook his head and threw the covers off himself, standing up.

As he walked through the corridors, thoughts about what the hell the dream meant flashed through his mind. None of his dreams had ever been that specific, especially the day after an occurrence. He failed to notice his surroundings, instead focusing on the dream. It had to mean something, but what?

None of it made any sense.

Eventually, Edward caught himself stepping inside the Institute's kitchen. It wasn't his planned destination; nothing had been, for that matter. However, he figured he might as well have something to drink after waking up so early.

As he was about to open the fridge, however, footsteps sounded behind him. Still unsure of what was in the Institute, he whirled around, drawing his seraph blade from his pajama pants (he had figured he might as well keep at least one weapon with him at all times) with alarming speed and efficiency. He even surprised himself.

"Okay, that's that question answered." Celine's honeylike voice came from the same place that the footsteps had, slightly startled but largely unnerved. "I was wondering why I heard footsteps."

Edward sighed in relief and slid the seraph back into the waistband of his pants. "I'm not an artist" was all he said. To his surprise, Celine laughed. It was a high, light noise, oddly pleasing.

"That explains it," she said, shoving her hands in her pockets. It was well enough lit for both of them to see without a flashlight, and he could see most of Celine's golden figure. "Couldn't sleep?"

"Woke up too early." Edward bit his lip as he turned back toward the fridge, opening the door and sticking his hand inside; he pulled it out, a bottle of water within his grip. "Figured I wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon," he added as he opened it.

"Eh, it's pretty much six o'clock anyway. I keep coming back too late," Celine said, wincing as if on cue. Edward raised an eyebrow, looking at her in concern.

"It's fine," she added, catching his look, "just a Ravener demon."

"I have a feeling that I'll only ever hear that from you," Edward said, somehow managing to inject his tone with humour. Celine laughed again.

"That's the most accurate thing I've heard all day. But they really are pretty nasty, if you think about it. Messenger demons that can kill you in an hour."

"Huh," he said, nodding and biting his lip, half out of concern.

 _Come on_ , he thought. _Tell her about the dream_.

But he couldn't seem to be able to bring it up. The words wouldn't come out of his mouth. All he could do was hope Celine would notice.

"You okay?" She asked, her eyebrows drawing together. Edward had to physically stop himself from sighing a breath of relief.

"Well, it's just a dream I had last night," he said and recounted the whole thing with surprising accuracy. He caught it midway through, but continued speaking, albeit a slightly confused expression. Edward remembered everything: The white room; the forest with the demon; the seraph blade; and holding his father's head. Celine merely raised her eyebrows at hearing this, silenced for the briefest of moments.

"Raveners can't make their way out of the demon realms on their own," she began, catching Edward slightly off guard. "They have to be summoned; I couldn't figure out exactly what it was doing in this world, but it can't be a coincidence that those two things happened on the same day."

"That is weird," Edward agreed, or pretended to do so. "But I don't understand what my dream dad meant when he said 'fix this.' Unless I'm taking this way too seriously and being absolutely paranoid."

"Trust me, I'm thinking the same thing. But you know, it's rare that you can recall a dream with that level of accuracy."

Edward couldn't deny that.

"But I don't know you- hell, I don't even know your last name-"

"Whitelaw," Edward said automatically.

Celine stopped short, not even bothering to protest the fact that she had been cut off. "Say that again?"

"Whitelaw," he said again, slightly confused. "Apparently it's my birth-"

He barely even got a chance to finish before Celine's hands were on his arms, those strangely beautiful feline eyes of hers locked on his, searching-for what, he didn't know. "Your birth name?" Edward nodded.

"You're Edward Whitelaw... Edward Whitelaw." Celine's eyes suddenly lit up, somehow becoming even more golden than they had been. "You're Edward Whitelaw!"

"Yeah," he said, absolutely bewildered, and concerned that someone would hear them at this time of night. Celine pulled herself against him, her arms a comfortable vice. Edward slid his arms around the slim girl, biting his lip in utter confusion. Sure, he enjoyed the hug, but he wasn't sure why she was on him all of a sudden.

"We've been looking for you. The whole Clave, ever since we heard about your-dilemma."

"You mean my parents going MIA?"

It was Celine's turn to be bedazzled. She pulled off him and looked at him quizzically. "MIA?"

"Missing in action," he said, waving it off as if his parent's situation in the world at the moment was secondary. "Can we please just get back to the question at hand?"

"Yeah, sure," Celine replied, a brief undertone of disappointment flowing with her silky voice. "So, what the hell could your dream dad have meant...?"

"I don't know. But there is one possibility. Maybe, and I don't know how this would connect to a dream, but maybe someone didn't want one of that yesterday's events to happen."

"Well, if that's the case, you can't fix that! You can't un-kill that demon-well, maybe in a few centuries-and you can't not go to the paintball field. The past is the past, and it's unchangeable."

"Wait a minute. That demon was holding a weapon. It was black, and I'd never seen anything like it before... You think it might have been some kind of demonic weapon?"

"If you're talking about having to take that weapon out of the demon's hands, well, the only thing I can tell you is that you had to do it to survive." Celine put a hand on his shoulder gently, a reassuring gesture. "If you didn't, the demon would have killed you."

"Yeah, but what if that's where I screwed up? What if taking possession of a demonic weapon is what I need to fix?" Edward's mind was racing by this point, almost uncatchable even by the likes of a computer. If touching a demonic weapon was a mistake of some kind...

"Well, I've never seen nor heard of a demonic weapon before now. It's almost unthinkable, and surely the Clave has no idea how to deal with that. Although, maybe you would have to go through one of the Shadowhunter rituals." Celine sighed in slight frustration, rubbing her forehead. "I don't know. Can we figure this out later? I'm tired," she said, and sat down, her eyes closing. Within the minute, she had fallen asleep.

Edward sighed inwardly, sitting down beside Celine as she slept. Now that she was asleep, he could see her face properly, without distraction. He hadn't realized it before, but her face was nearly perfect: The angle of her cheekbones; the curve of her jaw; and the pallor of her skin all combined to form the ideal face of beauty. And what was even more fascinating was that she was the spitting image of what was beautiful _to him_. As if she were made for him but left to find him on her own.

As he put an arm around her, he wondered how it was possible that he disliked her so much within their first hour of meeting. Not even. It was so strange, to watch that same golden girl fall asleep right beside him, the ice of alienness shattered, only to reveal the girl who was behind in her training, and the girl who couldn't help but crack a smile at anything Edward said that was remotely funny. So strange.

Edward merely rested his cheek against her head as he thought, not even bothering to stop himself. To his half-surprise, Celine leaned into him as well, smiling a little in her sleep.

For the first time since he had awoken, Edward smiled, too.


	5. Chapter 5

When Edward woke again, Celine was still asleep on his shoulder. He smiled a little at her dozing figure, stretching slightly. "Well, that's what I get for dozing off in the kitchen with you, I guess," he muttered, wrapping an arm around her. As if hearing Edward, Celine smiled a little and curled up against him. The boy raised his eyebrows, but remained silent, his smile growing a little wider.

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty," he whispered, catching himself a split-second later. Edward felt his cheeks redden; he could only hope she wouldn't tease him about it later.

Celine, who had definitely heard him, opened her eyes in a flutter of gold, looking up at him silently and smiling.

"Hey, you're awake," Edward said somewhat unnecessarily.

"Yeah, sorry for falling asleep on you," Celine replied, a light blush dusting her cheeks as she looked up at him, making them turn a slightly darker gold. Edward couldn't tell if she was joking, though the blush made him raise an eyebrow. He shrugged and smiled down at her.

"Don't worry about it, Cel. Do you mind if I call you that?" His mouth quirked up absentmindedly as if he was nervous, despite the conversation they had had before they fell asleep.

"No, of course not. Everyone calls me Celi anyway." The girl smiled at him softly, her eyes twinkling a little from the mysterious torchlight in the halls. Or perhaps that was just his imagination. "How long were we asleep?"

"I'd tell you if I had my watch or phone. Then again, there is my stomach-" as if illustrating his point, said organ began to growl fairly loudly "-which thinks we should have breakfast."

Celine laughed again, agreeing with a nod. "There's cereal in the fridge, and bacon and eggs, fruit, bread... we basically have half a warehouse of choices in there."

"Well, I don't know how to cook bacon and eggs," Edward replied as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. "I guess I'll have to settle for cereal."

"I bet you haven't even stuck your nose in a cookbook once," Celine teased, slapping his arm lightly.

"Yes, mainly because I spend more time around computer manuals or Star Wars novels."

"We're terribly sexist, aren't we?"

"Awfully," Edward said with a grin.

As soon as Edward had taken some cereal and fruit out of the fridge, he noticed that Celine was merely sitting on the countertop, looking like she was waiting for something to happen. It seemed a little strange to him that she wasn't hungry by that point, considering the fact that she had probably been out all night.

"Cel?" he said as he started pouring the milk, his eyebrows drawing together. "You gonna get something?"

The girl looked up as if startled, then attempted to recover. "Oh, no," she said, "I'll just grab an apple."

Flabbergasted, Edward let his milk overpour, causing the white liquid to spill over onto the table-along with some bits of cereal-while his mouth hung open. "That's it? But you just came back fighting a demon... I get super hungry in the morning _without_ doing that."

Celine merely shrugged in response. "I don't normally eat physical food" was all she said, walking towards the fridge as if it her statement was completely normal.

"What the hell do you _mean_ , you don't eat physical food? How do you survive?"

"Nourishment runes," she replied, smiling back at him. "They're really quite-"

"CELINE MARYSE HERONDALE," Katie shrieked from well outside the kitchen, startling them both (Edward's cereal ended up on the floor, but neither of them bothered to clean it up), "IF YOU DON'T EAT RIGHT THIS MINUTE, YOU WILL NEVER BE MY BRIDESMAID FOR MY WELL AND TRULY _OFFICIAL_ WEDDING!"

Celine-after recovering from the shouting-rolled her eyes. "Who said I wanted to be? I hate dresses!" she called back just as Katie entered the kitchen.

"I was going to get you to wear a waistcoat, tie and skirt," Katie whined. Celine shot a glance over at Edward that he somehow knew meant, "There is no way that is ever going to happen."

"Bit of a tomboy, huh?" Edward said, winking at Celine. To his slight yet pleasant surprise, she winked back.

"And proud," she said, causing Katie to give a slightly frustrated grunt.

"Okay, I don't care _what_ you wear, but if I've managed to get your _parabatai_ in a dress-"

"Wait, WHAT?!" Celine was suddenly appalled at this news, her golden head snapping back to Isla, her mouth open and her eyes wide. "Did you actually get Aerin in a _dress_?"

"Once or twice."

"How come no one ever told me?"

Katie smirked and put on a mock pondering face. "Um, because you never went to my last wedding, Celine Herondale?"

"I told Jason to tell you that weddings aren't quite my thing. Also, call me by my last name again, and I definitely won't be coming."

Katie's blue eyes suddenly widened into an expression of begging, her mouth reforming into a pout. "Pleeeeeease, Celi? You know you love me..."

Celine scoffed, a strand of her hair flying out of her face. "Fine. But don't expect me to be there unless I'm free. When is it?"

"No idea. But still, yay!" The girl clapped her hands together excitedly and giggled. "And you have a date now, too," she said before dashing off, her dark brown hair flying around her as she ran out of the kitchen.

"Uh... Okay, then," Edward said, furrowing his dark eyebrows, slightly weirded out by Katie's strange behaviour-or perhaps this was normal and he just wasn't used to it yet. "She's your friend, I guess?"

"You could say that. She's more my brother's friend, really. But I don't quite get what she meant by 'date.'"

Edward shrugged casually. "I guess she thought we were a thing already," he said, causing Celine to blush as if on cue, her skin darkening to a more noticeable gold colour. It was strange, he thought, considering no other person blushed gold. Then again, she did have extra angel blood in her, apparently.

"I guess you could say that," she mumbled.

Edward turned his head towards the girl, his teeth digging into his lower lip gently. He'd abandoned any pretense of asking who Isla was getting married to, distracted by Celine.

"Why the blush?" he asked, his head tilting to the side.

"No reason!" Celine said quickly, blushing even further. Edward grinned at that, shaking his head. The answer was fairly obvious now.

"You want that to happen. No need to be embarrassed, really."

Celine looked quite shocked-despite him basically asking her out the previous day-and stuttered for a few moments before giving up and looking down, her cheeks reaching their apparent darkest point.

"Is it really that obvious?"

"Yeah, just a little," Edward replied, rubbing the back of his neck, the rest of whatever he wanted to say suddenly stopped by the pulse in his neck as if it were creating a kink in his windpipe. He took a deep breath and continued. "Don't worry, though. I... kind of want that to happen, too."

Celine's head snapped up, and Edward flinched as if she had pulled out a knife. Her catlike eyes were wide with disbelief, and he hoped she hadn't caught his flinch. "Really?" she asked, the word spilling out alongside a wave of disbelief.

"Yeah, actually," Edward said, feeling heat build up in his own cheeks. "Are we still on for this weekend?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then I guess we should call that a date," he said, a nervous smile spreading across his face, which Celine returned.

"A date it is," she said, looking back at the spilled cereal on the floor. "Think we should clean that up, by the way?"

Edward smacked himself in the forehead, cursing softly. "Yep. That would be a good idea."

When the cereal had finally been cleaned up, taking a good ten minutes, Edward turned to Celine. "So, what about classes?" he said.

"Oh, right, yes," she said, perking up slightly. "You get to meet my wondrous father."

"Was that sarcastic?" Edward asked, noting the marginally bitter tone in her voice. He had read so many novels to know that a girl with parental issues was more common than you'd think.

"Slightly. He is a great father and all, but he seems to be really protective of me because I'm the youngest."

"Ah, I see," Edward said, nodding, though he didn't quite understand the feeling. "I'm the oldest one in my family, even considering my adoptive brother."

"Lucky you. Charlie's barely an hour older than me, and my parents aren't as protective over him."

This made Edward raise an eyebrow. It made absolutely no sense; technically, Celine and Charlie should have been twins. He ended up merely shrugging and letting the thought pass. "We should probably get going to wherever we're going, shouldn't we?"

"Mm-hmm." Celine nodded, standing up and beckoning for him to follow. He did so, brushing off his pants and walking along beside her.

"We'll likely be learning about runes today. I'll teach you a few of the runes I know, and my dad'll teach me some new ones while you get used to your stele. Sound good?"

Edward nodded and scanned the tapestry walls of the place. Suddenly, he frowned as he remembered the fact that he hadn't yet asked what this place was called. "Er, Cel," he said, "hate to sound like an idiot, but did you mention what this place was called?"

"No, actually," Celine replied, and launched into an explanation of the church-like building. By the time they had reached the library, Edward knew that the place was called an Institute and that every major city had one; the Institute in the capital city of a country controlled that country's group of Shadowhunters, called a Conclave or an Enclave, depending on the country.

"If I'm honest, the London Institute is the most popular," Celine ended up saying. "Most of the inhabitants in this Institute actually came from London."

"Really?" Edward asked, intrigued. He normally wouldn't have expected a strong British presence within the United States. Then again, Shadowhunter history most likely worked far differently than human history.

"Mm-hmm. My family, for example. Which is why I sound kinda British."

"Well, I thought you came from the UK somewhere," Edward admitted.

"Some people even ask me when I immigrated," Celine said, rolling her eyes. "It gets kind of annoying but oh well."

"I was actually about to ask that," he said with a nervous chuckle. "Before you mentioned the whole family coming here thing."

Celine grinned at that, shaking her head, her long hair bobbing slightly with the movement. "I wouldn't exactly blame you," she said. "I'd probably ask the same thing."

"Not surprising," Edward said just as Celine turned, arriving at a massive set of double oak doors. They were somewhat intimidating if anything was to be said about them, totaling at about double Edward's height. However, he figured they housed a millennia's worth of information, just judging by the sheer size of the entryway.

"This is it," Celine said. "The library, where I hid for days on end trying to catch up with the other kids my age."

"Huh." Edward nodded. "Wait, didn't you mention something about your dad tutoring us or something?"

Celine merely shrugged. "Slight change of plans" was all she said, pushing open the doors. As soon as Edward saw what was inside, his jaw dropped.

The library was as massive as the doors foreshadowed, lined with shelves and books filling them to the brim. In the middle sat a polished wooden table, supported by two carved angels, their faces contorted in effort. Leading up to the table was a carpet depicting an image of an angel with a sword and cup. The smell of thousands of old books hit him like a wall, except it was a wall you would have enjoyed smacking face first into. Edward's jaw dropped as he stepped inside the immense room, uttering the words: "Ho... ly... crap," as he turned in a slow circle, taking everything in. Celine giggled again beside him.

"Big, isn't it?"

"Bit of an understatement," Edward replied, still staring at the enormous stock of books.

"Then how big would you say it is?" Celine replied, and Edward finally looked at her, his eyes fixed on the grin that seemed to be expertly carved into a gold canvas.

"I am never going to be able to give you an exact measurement, so... I'll say absolutely mother-effing massive."

Celine giggled. "If you say so," she said, moving to stand next to him and leaning into his shoulder gently. Edward looked down at her, resisting the urge to kiss her on the forehead. She was almost too cute and beautiful not to, but no. They'd only known each other for a day.

"Where do we start?" he asked instead. Celine took hold of his hand in response, leading the two of them to a shelf before reaching for a selection just out of her reach. Edward let her try for a few seconds before reaching out and pulling out the book himself, hardly noticing the fact that it flew straight into his hand a split second before he actually got a grip on it. He frowned, but shrugged and showed her the cover anyway. Celine stared at it for a few seconds before looking at him.

"How did you do that?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"No idea," Edward replied, shaking his head. "I didn't actually know I was even the one doing it."

"Well unless Matt's enchanted the books, it had to be one of us. And I didn't do it, obviously."

"I honestly have no idea. I guess I just thought about the book and... It just flew right towards me." He shrugged.

"Hm, and the mystery of you grows... But I don't mind. Most of the people I'm close to have some kind of weirdness and mystery to them."

"That's called a quirk," Edward said with a grin, causing Celine to hit his shoulder lightly and take the book from him. It was leather-bound, with a strange marking on the front cover and no text. "But yeah, I've been a little confused about Isla's 'orbing' thing."

"Same here. And before you ask, I have no idea how that even works. No Shadowhunter's ever had that ability before," she said as she walked over to a desk and opened up the book, flipping through it. Within were a bunch of strange symbols, one per page; under each symbol was a name: Angelic Power, Friendship, and something called an _iratze_ caught his eye.

"I guess no Shadowhunter has ever had telekinetic abilities before?" he said, interrupting Celine's page turning.

"Again, not that I know of, but then again, no Shadowhunter was ever supposed to make runes. My mother could, though."

Edward raised an eyebrow. "And then everyone started doing it?"

Celine looked up and at him. "Nope. Only myself, my sister Jocelyn and mother can create runes. But mine and Jocelyn's skills are limited."

"Oh, you meant _create_ runes..."

Celine just rolled her eyes, smiling a little. "Now, have you ever wanted night vision?" She asked, flipping through a few more pages until she stopped at one. Of course, to Edward it was just another rune until he read the caption and his stomach clenched in excitement.

"Oh, yes," his eyes brightening dramatically, and Celine smiled wider.

"Give me your arm, then," she said, pulling out a fancy, thin rod from her jacket-a _stele._ He nodded and did as she asked, pulling his sleeve back while she disappeared to close the curtains, cloaking the room in darkness. Edward blinked as his eyes tried to adjust to the lack of light, but ended up relying on the sound of Celine's footsteps to know when she was close.

Suddenly, he felt his sleeve being pulled back. Edward bit his lip in anticipation at what would come next. As soon as his whole forearm was exposed, he felt a cold burning, like snow being dumped onto his arm in a single point.

 _Just like that day_ , he thought with a wince that Celine seemed to ignore. This sort of thing was apparently normal.

The feeling of snow on his bare arm continued until Celine had pulled the _stele_ off his skin. Edward blinked, and nearly jumped when he suddenly saw Celine as if she'd opened the curtains in a split second. But when he turned his head to look, the curtains were still closed.

"Nyx," Celine said, her voice gentle. "The night-vision rune. Like it?" she added, grinning.

"No, Celine, I don't like it," he said, doing his best to keep his voice serious. At her clearly disappointed face, he broke into a grin and said, "I love it."

Celine looked she was about to jump through the roof in joy. "Great! It's not permanent, unfortunately, so it does fade. But it lasts a fair while."

"I'd take temporary night vision over permanent night vision anyway."

"Well, I'm glad you like it anyway," Celine said, closing the book and looking at him directly.

"Not a bad way to start my new life," he said, resting a hand on the table and looking around, a grin taking residence on his face.

"So," Celine said, her voice taking on a mock dramatic tone. "It seems I have made this lesson mysterious. Two teenagers left alone in a dark spooky library."

"You know that never ends well," Edward replied, mimicking her voice's drama.

"No... Will they ever make it out for their date at the weekend?" She ducked behind a bookcase and added, "We shall see," peeking her head out.

Barely suppressing a grin, Edward stepped behind a bookcase, his head peeking out and looking at Cel. "Indeed we shall," he said, trailing off for even more "drama." "What lurks in the shadows?" Inside his head, he was already bursting with laughter. The whole thing was so ridiculous, and yet he couldn't stop himself from doing it.

"Mysteries. Mysteries that are hidden from the human eye." Edward could have sworn he'd heard her giggling, but he couldn't be entirely sure.

He looked up, as if seeing something. "It appears something is right above young Celine," he said, knowing full well that whatever was above her was just air.

"I wonder what it may be," Celine said, looking above her. Edward took his chance, dashing over and crouching on the other side of Celine's bookshelf.

"A winged demon, perhaps?" Edward replied, biting down on his lower lip to suppress a laugh.

"Oh, how I _wish_ I had my seraph blade!" Her voice was oozing with that classic overexaggerated damsel-in-distress tone. "I don't think I will ever survive this encounter!" Celine added, surpressing another giggle. Edward could almost imagine her putting a hand to her forehead and nearly burst out laughing himself.

Slowly, Edward crept around the book case, behind Celine and shouted "GOTCHA!" while grabbing her shoulders. "It is I! Edward Whitelaw, the Shadowhunter turned demon!" His grip fumbled and Celine stumbled away from him, falling over.

"Oh, but what is this? Tragedy, that's what! The upcoming date of our two unfortunate teenagers has been thrown out the window!"

"But wait! How will Celine deal with this new revelation? Find out next time on Library Tales: Shadowhunter Edition!"

They both burst out laughing.


	6. Chapter 6

**One Month Later**

Two seemingly impossible things had happened: Celine Herondale was in a skirt, and she was a bridesmaid at Katie Ashdown's wedding. Edward didn't know how Katie managed it, but there she was, along with her parabatai Aerin Carstairs and several other girls. Like Katie had said, they were all wearing waistcoats, ties, and skirts with runes stitched into the hems-some of their own Marks showed above the necklines of their tops and beyond the sleeves.

At this rate, Edward was essentially just waiting for something to happen. Sure, he'd taken time to appreciate the warm breeze blowing off the Bronx river and the crisp blue sky, but that wasn't exactly sustainable entertainment. As for thinking about something, like he usually did, his mind ended up drawing a blank - apart from Celine. He couldn't seem to ever take his mind or his eyes off of her. Not that that was a problem, though, since they were both dating. Every weekend they'd go somewhere different, often to places Edward had never been and some he wouldn't have even heard of: The Pandemonium nightclub (popular with mundanes and Downworlders alike), a restaurant called Taki's that mainly served Downworlders (though it didn't discriminate against Shadowhunters), and even mundane tourist spots (which had Edward questioning how Celine managed to obtain mundane money).

Now, though, he was sitting down at a wedding, trying to avoid glancing at rude spots while musing precisely how Katie got Aerin and Celine into wearing a skirt. Just then, Celine's brother Charlie came over and sat right next to Edward.

"Hey," Edward said with an attempt at a smile that must have worked since Charlie reciprocated. They'd already passed the, "Don't hurt her or else I will murder you," phase and were actually fairly good friends by now. The only questioning done was on the next topic of discussion, if at all.

"They're a bit late," Charlie said, surprising Edward slightly, though not much. It was more the fact that he pointed it out so abruptly than the subject itself.

"I think Katie's just got some nerves," Edward replied, regaining himself quickly, "you know how she is." Charlie nodded and returned his golden eyes to the altar just as Katie appeared at the back of the aisle, wearing a pale gold dress and holding a bouquet of yellow roses. Every eye turned to her, including both of Matt's (who couldn't seem to keep a tear or two out of his eye as his bride strode up the aisle, taking her precious time). Katie smiled, a tear in her eye. She then stopped for a moment, presumably to regain her composure.

Then, her eyes widened. A small black flower bloomed on her stomach, leaking through her dress.

That was when everything erupted into chaos. Edward found himself in a mass of limbs; shrieks sprouted from mouths left and right as Katie collapsed on the aisle floor.

Sure enough, when Edward got to Katie, having ignored numerous shouts for him to get down, he saw an arrow sticking out of her back with a note attached. He tore it off hastily, looking around for any threats. None came out from behind the chairs or out of the shadows, concerning Edward further.

Suddenly, Celine popped back into his head; fear and guilt exploded inside him. Yes, Katie collapsing was a matter of concern, but how could Celine's safety completely evade him as well? He silently berated himself for a split second before he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"You okay?" Celine asked, making Edward breathe out a sigh of relief. There was one worry out of the way.

"Yeah," Edward replied, looking at his girlfriend. "Are you?"

"I'm all good." She pointed to Katie. "We need to get her back to the Silent Brothers." Her voice shook with worry and Edward could faintly hear Katie's groans over the commotion, which had calmed down since nothing else was flying through the air and landing in people's heads.

"The Silent Brothers," Edward repeated before nodding. The Silent Brothers were the healers and scholars of the Shadowhunters. Celine had taught him that much. They bore powerful Marks that allowed them to live, heal, and study for a time that made a human lifespan seem like that of a fly; however, those Marks came at the cost of some interesting physical and mental modifications. Their mouths and eyes were sealed and they moved soundlessly. They spoke more with their mind than their body. They were frightening at first sight, but friendly enough once their telepathic tendencies slid past the shock barrier.

"Or," another voice spoke from behind them, "maybe you should consider the services of a warlock."

Only Celine seemed to know that voice.

"Magnus Bane?" she asked, turning around and staring at the strange voice's owner. He'd heard of the High Warlock of Brooklyn (Guess who told him?) but had yet to lay eyes on the glimmering figure. His face seemed to sparkle with every turn and dark lines surrounded his eyes; the pupils within were slits in his golden irises.

"Well?" he said, gesturing to Katie. "I wouldn't just stand there if I were you. You may want to get her to the Institute. I'll hold off whatever's inside her in the meantime. Celine, can you keep an eye out for any other undesirables?"

"Will do," Celine said with a nod. She didn't question why he was so eager to help them. However, Edward figured it was inappropriate and time-consuming to ask. He only picked up Katie and exchanged a look with Celine, who nodded.

"Let's go," she said, and they took off.

Carrying Katie through New York was surprisingly easy when you had glamour runes. Celine had had the good graces to herself, Katie, and Edward before setting off into the streets. Despite the fact that no one gave Magnus more than a double take, Edward's heart raced at the idea of being discovered, for one. If they were discovered, questions would be asked. Too many questions.

Every second they weren't exposed to outsiders - which was quite frequent, as Magnus' route took them through every back alley and side road possible to stay out of sight - Magnus worked his magic, preventing whatever Katie had been shot with from burrowing any deeper. However, that wasn't what scared him. What did was the occasional moment where Magnus had to stop to avoid mundane observation. To Edward, every time Magnus stopped, even for the briefest of seconds, Katie's condition seemed to worsen exponentially. Perhaps it was his panic, but that thought didn't ease him in the slightest.

When Celine asked if there were any way of Magnus casting an illusion spell on himself to prevent sightings, he merely explained that it would weaken the effects of his stabilizing magic; with this sort of demon venom, it was all or nothing.

Great, Edward thought. At this rate, we'll never get to-

Somehow, he mentally cut himself off as they rounded a corner and the spires of the Institute came into view. He breathed a sigh of relief and was about to speak when Celine had the first word. "We're almost there," she said, giving Katie's body a worried glance. "You think she'll be okay?"

"I hope so," Edward answered, but the black spot on her chest was nowhere near reassuring.

"That's more of an optimistic answer," Magnus cut in, sparks still flying from his hands. Right then, Edward had an abrupt and nearly overwhelming urge to smack him.

"A more realistic answer," Magnus continued, his mouth annoyingly unresponsive to Edward's silent urging, "would be-"

"Magnus," Celine said, her golden glare enough to cut him clean off, "you are seriously lucky we are reliant on you to get Katie through the day. Otherwise, I would punch that mouth of yours to the other side of the street!"

Edward mouthed a silent, "Thank you," at which Celine half-smiled for a brief moment.

"Well, I was actually about to say that her revival would take several ingredients to complete, not all of them easy to gather. I'll list them when we get there. Now, if we could get through the day without another altercation . . ."

"Won't happen if you keep being a dickhead," Celine muttered to herself as they crossed the street to the Institute.

By the time the two had dropped Katie off at the infirmary and enlisted the Silent Brothers' help, Edward was rather exhausted. The idea of fetching ingredients for whatever brew Magnus intended to create - Edward was sincerely appalled when Magnus mentioned a draconidae fang; Celine had to explain that they were actually purchasable (though expensive, which didn't improve Edward's standpoint in the slightest) - was rather outlandish, even if it was to help Katie.

Instead of waiting any longer for Celine to come by the hallway he was in, Edward took out the slip of paper he had taken and opened it up. The intended recipient's name made his heart skip a beat.

The name at the top, in an unmistakable script, was Edward Whitelaw.

 _What the hell is this?_ Edward thought, scrolling with his eyes.

 _Well, Mr. Whitelaw, it seems you have a bit of a predicament. Your friend is in some horrendous condition I won't bother to guess, and you're trying to save her. How sweet._

 _That is not why I have written to you, of course, I'm just going to keep this simple: I want you to leave the Institute and the Clave. Doesn't that sound like fun? Oh, wait, your friend Celine would have to stay in that case . . . oh well! Now, before you go off and discard this, I want to make two things clear: One, I happen to have your parents held captive (Yes, they aren't dead! What a surprise!) and two, I am willing to make an offer: Your leaving the Institute in exchange for your parents._

 _You have three months. No, make that two._

 _Have fun!_

 _P.S. Part of me shooting Katie was more for fun, really._

When he was finished, half of Edward wanted to crumple up the note and toss it at the wall. The other half wanted to do some combination of screaming, throwing a fit, or some other thing while he waited for Celine to inevitably turn up. Indecisive, he did neither.

Despite all this, all he could think was:

 _My parents are still alive._


End file.
